Advertisers losing ‘hundreds of millions’ due to anti-tracking measure

Back in September of last year, Apple cracked down on tracking in Safari, making it more difficult for advertisers to track an individual user’s web activity in order to customize their ad experience. Now, according to a piece by Roger Fingas over at AppleInsider, ad firms are losing “hundreds of millions of dollars” as a result of the measure. Fingas emphasized just how grave the impact on the ad industry could be:

Just one firm — Criteo, which controls 15 percent of the browser-based market — is expected to cut its 2018 revenues by a fifth versus projections before ITP was announced, The Guardian said on Tuesday. Since the company brought in $730 million in 2016 alone, the impact of ITP industry-wide could be severe.

For a time after the feature was first implemented, companies such as Criteo exploited a loophole in order to get past it. However, according to AppleInsider, that loophole was closed by Apple on iPhones and iPads with December’s iOS 11.2 update. Many advertising organizations also protested ITP in September directly after the measure’s release.

AppleInsider also spoke to Dennis Buchheim, General Manager of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Tech Lab, about the effect ITP may have on ad businesses:

We expect a range of companies are facing similar negative impacts from Apple’s Safari tracking changes. Moreover, we anticipate that Apple will retain ITP and evolve it over time as they see fit.

While Apple maintains that this issue is one of privacy because information is being gathered without user permission, ad firms said in an open letter the company that the ITP feature risks “disrupting the valuable digital advertising ecosystem that funds much of today’s digital content and services.”

Thoughts?

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Advertisers losing ‘hundreds of millions’ due to anti-tracking measure